In this episode, we kick off with an enticing advertisement for the latest Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo deals before diving into the wild and unpredictable world of Florida Man stories. Join us as we recount some of the most memorable and hilarious antics of Floridians in 2024, from driving a truck into the ocean to impersonating security at a Taylor Swift concert. It’s a light-hearted segment that will leave you laughing out loud.
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SPEAKER 11 :
Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast, sponsored by Kel-Tec.
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It’s his life mission to make bad decisions. It’s time for Florida Man.
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s right. It’s time for Florida Man on the Dana Show. I decided I’m going to do something special for today and Monday. I’m going to do some of the best Florida Man stories of 2024. Not maybe the newest ones, but the best ones in honor of the end of the year. A few for today. Not my fault that truck don’t surf was the answer a Florida man gave after getting arrested for driving his car into the ocean. This happened back in February of this year. The guy obviously seemed to think that, hey, maybe it does float. Maybe it doesn’t. We’ll all find out together. The answer being no. That’s one of the best Florida man stories of the year. Another one that made my top 10 list, if that’s what we’re doing here, and maybe again on Monday, Florida man impersonated a security guard to get into a Taylor Swift concert. He was arrested for trying that road. Apparently the 44-year-old guy who described himself as an absolute Swifty, this happened in October of this year, by the way, didn’t do enough to convince people that he actually was in fact a security guard. Many people noticed him as someone that didn’t seem to belong, eventually turning him over to authorities. Another Florida man that made news in 2024 had an hours-long junk food feast inside a closed Walgreens. According to cops, this happened back in July. The Florida man was arrested as he indulged in all kinds of things after being accidentally locked into the Walgreens. Seemed he thought that that was what was allowed then. You know, you’re in the bathroom for five hours. You get locked in because people do not still know you’re in there. And then once you open the door and you’re alone, now everything’s free, at least until they open the door and arrest me. That would be a problem. Dr. Pepper, Newport cigarettes apparently were smoked. Reese’s candy, spinach dip, all kinds of things used. Ghirardelli chocolate consumed in mass quantities. The guy thought, I’m making the most out of my time. Locked inside a Walgreens. Another of the legendary Florida men of 2024. And then one last one for right now, a Florida woman stormed into an area after going into a gas station and buying a mask, then trying to rob a bank across the street from the gas station. All of that caught on video because darn it, how stupid do you have to be to be like, they’re not going to see me over here. I’m going to do this and then go over there. I’m easily cracked case. I’m not something that you should try yourself. If it’s something you’re thinking about doing, maybe just bring the mask from home. I don’t know. It’s probably not going to make it better, but it might make it better. But that story happened back in June of this year. Those are some of my favorite Florida men and women of 2024. I will do more of those on Monday as part of the end of the year, Florida men’s stories. There’s a few other great ones out there involving a chicken and and all kinds of serious plans, and actually alligators as well. That’s all coming up again in about a couple days. One of my favorite people to follow on social media is Tom Elliott. He works at Grabian. I think he’s actually in charge of Grabian. They put together a whole bunch of viral videos and other stuff. They have a bunch of services that you can use to access all kinds of media. But these are incredible people. He has put together his top 10 lies, media embarrassing moments of 2024. I’ve tried my best to pare this down to something I can play a lot of on the show. The full tweet is 10 minutes long or post on X. You should go check it out. Follow him. This is incredible. I’ve left in most of the voiceover, too, as they count down the numbers 10 through 1. But let’s play part of this. We’ll react to it as we go. The 10 biggest lies that media told us or the biggest embarrassing moments for media in 2024, according to Grabian and the great Tom Elliott.
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Ignore your eyes.
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Those are cheap fakes.
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There’s a growing and insidious trend in right wing media, broadcast, print and social media. It is to take highly misleading and selectively edited videos of President Biden.
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They’re doing terrible things. They’re making Biden look like a moron because he’s not one. And we promise he’s not one. There’s several other clips that prove that. That was number 10 on their list. CNN thinks America is a democracy. That’s number nine on their list. CNN thinks America is America’s democracy. You have a guy on the street asking questions and people correcting him and then him going back behind the scenes at CNN and saying this.
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I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories. I hear a lot of things out on the road. But to hear Americans. People who would describe themselves as patriots say that America is not a democracy. That stopped me in my tracks.
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It stopped me in my tracks, even though America is a republic and not a democracy. And that’s an accurate statement that you can say. That’s number eight. Number seven. Number eight. Beyonce. Oh, excuse me. This is number eight.
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Number eight. Beyonce is performing at the DNC.
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There are rumors. There are rumors. I love this one. Beyonce might make an appearance. I personally think that that’s true.
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Is the United Center going to be turning into the Beehive tonight? I don’t care.
SPEAKER 15 :
I really don’t care. That was number eight on his list. Number ten, number nine, number eight. All excellent so far. Beyonce did not make an appearance. She was bumped or something. I can’t remember what happened there. She did speak, but she didn’t perform anything at the DNC. Number seven.
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The media tries to scare people about Project 2025. Oh, this happened.
SPEAKER 15 :
The media tries to hype up the amount of missing… Hold on, actually, you know what? I don’t even care about that one. I skipped most of it because of how insane it was. But everything about Project 2025 was telling us how awful and horrible and definitely Donald Trump’s plan this was, even though it wasn’t his. And he actually also condemned portions of it, saying there’s things that he definitely didn’t agree with in it. But there are things that didn’t seem… like all that bad of ideas too uh but again not his plan at all uh that was number seven on their list absolutely happened uh like crazy number six media tries to hype up the amount of misinformation on x after elon musk took over in 2022 most of its fact checkers were fired
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Now the site is rife with trash.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, rife with trash talk and all kinds of other things. Number six on the list. They’re still trashing Elon. They’re still trashing Twitter. They’re still trying to convince you that you should not like him at all or be on that platform or be anywhere near the people who are on that platform because, darn it, it has a unique amount of influence on our society right now. That’s an exceptional first half. of the list of top 10 things that media embarrassed themselves or lied about. This is, again, from Tom Elliott and Gravian, a long post, 10-minute video you can watch in its entirety on social media, showing you just how many people repeated these same ridiculous lies. Let’s keep going.
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Number five, Tim Walz is the best. J.D. Vance is the worst.
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Midwestern dad, like super clean vibe. So plain spoken and relatable. Pretty moderate Democrat.
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Very moderate record.
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A new moderate. He’s right down the middle. He’s not just an old white man.
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He also beats America, you know. And J.D. Vance is weird, extreme. The worst.
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Utter humorlessness. It’s hard to believe that J.D. Vance could be any more extreme.
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Okay.
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I can’t take it. Tim Walls was a weird dude, is a weird dude, is a very forgettable dude, but a dude who definitely didn’t embody masculinity or new masculinity, whatever they told us that he was embodying. And J.D. Vance has been incredibly articulate in the time in which he’s been on television. I’m not trying to say that he’s perfect or everything about him is great, but honestly, that debate between them crushed this narrative, but this narrative was being used quite a few times. That’s just number five. So many left to go. So many good demonstrations of just crap being told to us. Let’s continue.
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All of our access to health care goes away.
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Oh, wait. Oh, sorry. This one is Trump apparently being a dictator and doing horrible things in our society. And a few of these clips are amazing, too. Number four on his list.
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All of our access to health care goes away next Tuesday. The stakes literally are life and death for every woman in America. It’s not hyperbole. It’s not an exaggeration.
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Trump will fulfill his promise to be a dictator on day one. That’s up a network of camps.
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Extraordinarily erratic foreign policy in the Middle East. Doing profound and possibly permanent damage to American democracy.
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Yeah, there’s no camps. I haven’t seen any camps yet, and I don’t think we’ll see any camps even when Trump actually gets into office. This stuff is also just so insane. And Trump even saying himself if he was at all a dictator on day one, which originally came from an interview with Sean Hannity in which he only talked about the border being something he’d fix. Hannity told him, you don’t have to be a dictator as the president to do that. He said, whatever, that’s fine. A Trump in response. And then they moved on because he’s absolutely not going to try or going to in any way, shape or form be an actual dictator of a media didn’t care. That was number four. Let’s continue.
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If if historians in the future.
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All right.
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A little bit more of this one. And by the way, that question is open this morning.
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Ridiculous. Number three, Joe Biden would never pardon his son because he is such a great guy.
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The president will promise to put the law before a family.
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The president has ruled out pardoning his son. Definitely not happening. Keep making this argument. I don’t know if he believes it.
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He would respect the outcome of this case.
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This was a good day for the system. Good day for sort of America as an example of how the rule of law should work.
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We’re coming on the air this hour with breaking news. President Biden has just pardoned his son Hunter.
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To be honest, I really thought that that should have been number one because of how hilarious it was and how long-lasting it was. I’m not trying to rethink the genius of Grabian and Tom Elliott, but that was a lie told to us pretty much all year long that wound up being absolutely inaccurate and relatively quickly. And I just love that edit there where you go right to the breaking news announcement and Yeah, okay, he did the thing that he told us all he wasn’t going to do.
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Number two, media gets caught editing interviews to help Kamala Harris.
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When you talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people, what are one or two specific things you have in mind for that?
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Well, I’ll start with this. I grew up a middle class kid. Oh, no. My mother raised my sister and me. She worked very hard. She was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager.
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Yeah, yeah, okay.
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I grew up in a community of hardworking people. You’re getting nervous now. Construction workers and nurses and teachers. I try to explain to some people who may not have had the same experience, you know, but a lot of people will relate to this. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn.
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You know what? Talk about bringing down prices and making. Sorry, I love that at it, too. They’re very proud of their lawn, you know. And then let’s see the other talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people. What are one or two specific things you have in mind for that?
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So when I talk about building an opportunity economy, it is very much with the mind of investing in the ambitions and aspirations and the incredible… Yeah, that was an answer to a different question, as you probably remember and as I remember, and they just added that answer in and acted like it was actually the thing she said in response to the question she was asked and not the stuff about people being proud of their lawns. That was number two for Grabian and Tom Elliott for Ridiculous Media Embarrassing Moments of the Year. For this war.
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to end number one there’s no cognitive decline in fact biden has never been better start your tape right now because i’m about to tell you the truth this version of biden is the best biden ever so good I think he’s better than he’s ever been. He is sharp, intensely probing and detail oriented and focused.
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President Biden has a photographic memory, but he’s totally focused. He’s very sharp. They say he’s sharp in meetings and so on. Very lucid, very well informed.
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He’s older. That doesn’t mean that he is unfit. He can clear a dementia bar and that’s probably a win. More wild speculation from a book.
SPEAKER 15 :
I love that idiot, too. It’s probably a win that he can clear a dementia bar. That’d be great. But those were the top 10 most embarrassing moments in media, according to Tom Elliott and Graby, and just excellently done. And as I said, there’s a much longer version you can check out on social media, on X, on Twitter. He’s great. at those mashups and those highlight things. And that probably does deserve, I’ll admit it now, I thought number three, not pardoning my son, deserved to be number one just because of how egregious that lie was and how long-lasting it was. But this lie was worse. That Biden’s doing fine. Everything’s okay. Nothing to see here. And then he tanks a debate and they finally admit he’s not okay because they know they’re not going to win with him. And for some reason, they thought they were going to win with Harris. But that didn’t go well. And so I think if that actually hadn’t occurred, they never would have admitted how broken Biden was if they actually thought he could have beat Trump. But when they finally admit it, then a bunch of other stories come out, Wall Street Journal and whatnot, about just how broken he’s been and just how significantly that has impacted his time in the White House and how little decision-making he actually did. But anyway, one more time, I’m not trying to overly promote it. I know I just took a whole segment to play it, but it was that good and that worth it. Go check out Tom Elliott and Gravian online to see the whole thing for yourself.
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Our partners over at Preborn, great organization that’s out there saving lives right and left, and they’re meeting with mothers… And they’re helping them as these mothers are facing an unexpected pregnancy. or unplanned pregnancy, I should say. And a lot of people are searching for hope and a lot of people feel like this is, that’s, you know, a lot of women, they think that that’s their last resort and it’s not. And that’s what pre-born ministry steps in to help with. They meet these women, they introduce them to their babies, ultrasounds, they listen to the heartbeat. When that happens, studies shown that a child’s chance of surviving doubles at that point. But that’s not all. They partner with these women up until the toddler years, making sure that that these families get the best start and that just goes so much it’s just that’s exactly what is needed they steward these women they they help this new life and they’re able to do it because of your generous donations save a life this christmas it starts at just 28 i mean by donating that amount you can help support women and babies in need and provide vital care and resources You can make even a larger life-changing donation, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000. You can use that to save countless babies, maximize your year-end tax deduction. It’s doubled with a special matching grant as well. So your gift will have double the impact. Any donation matters. So if you want to know how to donate, it’s simple and easy. You just dial pound or for millennials, hashtag pound. Pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That’s pound 250, keyword baby. You can also visit preborn.com slash Dana to donate online. Every contribution counts. Pound 250, say the keyword baby, preborn.com slash Dana.
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And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It’s time for Dana’s Quick Five.
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I saw that Netflix released its numbers for its Christmas games, and they were about 5 million viewers shy, at least the people who watched more than a few seconds of these games, than the numbers from last year’s broadcast TV numbers. That’s a big deal. That’s a big win for Netflix to be within 5 million of the broadcast television stats one year after it switched over to be a mostly Netflix thing. And also the amount of exposure that these sports are getting on an international stage is way up comparatively because of Netflix use in all these other countries. Although there were still streaming issues and buffering issues and challenges. But I know that this is being somewhat used as a as a negative because the numbers were lower than television. But come on, it’s on Netflix and it’s crushing it. For some reason, Netflix wants to be TV, though. We’re slowly turning it into what television used to be, and eventually people are not going to realize that we’re paying more for the same thing once it has more live stuff and then more commercials and all that other crap. But all right, that’s a big story out there as far as a quick five goes. Another quick five that I thought was interesting. Florida is going to start using radioactive material for its roadways. I don’t know how big of a deal this is actually going to be. I know that it’s a heck of a headline a lot of places, but there is some byproduct of phosphorus mining that might be used as roadway material that apparently, as it starts to evaporate and break apart, actually does go radioactive. But hey, it’s Florida. which is a place that I actually live. And also, we’ll talk about Florida Man in a little over an hour or so. So, darn it, this feels like it fits right in there. And it’s only going to be in a small area for now, and we’ll see how it works out and how many people start glowing before we roll it out to more places, I assume. Also, this story, which I thought was pretty interesting. Scientists have discovered a pill that they think will enhance the lifespan of a dog. Maybe a year, maybe more. They’re not exactly sure. In the press conference for the product, I love that the people said, we’re not making dogs immortal. Not that people were asking for that, or who knows, maybe they are. But we are extending their life. The most exciting part of this, at least for some, is the pill might eventually be relevant to humans. to extend our life, to give us a longer lifespan too. However, you might doubt any efficacy there and I wouldn’t blame you for it. But for now, it is a beef flavored daily pill designed for dogs that slows down their metabolism and some other signs of aging that allows them to have longer periods of time where they’re, you know, healthy and in their prime before they start to get older. So we’ll see how that works. We’ll see what good that does. It feels like it could be the beginning of a terrible set of stories that involve some horrible things. And actually, speaking of that… Just quickly as another top five topic, bird flu is the latest version of be afraid of this during the end of the holiday season and into next year because we might use it to shut everything down. There are multiple stories about bird flu outbreaks, about mutations in the world of bird flu. Pretty much everything trying to fear, you know, scare, fear monger, whatever us back into some version of, well, we might have to hide inside for a few months. We’ll see if they go that far. I imagine they won’t. This feels like the beginning stages of that as far as a lot of the reporting from Yahoo, CNN, pretty much everybody on this topic. I am 0% afraid of bird flu right now, and I assume you are too. And good for us. to not be afraid of that. We’ll see how the next year goes. One last thing, too, just quickly. Bill Clinton was discharged from the hospital after being treated for the flu. I think it was just regular and not of the bird flu variety. And some things I love about the fact that the Diet Coke button and Bill Clinton are in the news together has made people wonder what the red button was that Bill Clinton might have had installed when he was in the White House and what it summoned for. I don’t want to answer that question. You don’t want the answer to that question. I have no idea what it is. I think… Maybe I do. Anyway, quick break. A lot more coming up. Scott Jennings has been going viral a lot recently while on CNN. He talked about the Panama Canal and Trump’s reference to maybe taking it back from Panama. Trump’s concern about Chinese influence in that area or throughout a lot of places that might impact the United States. And Jennings was definitely OK with. with how Trump is making this a topic in a lot of people’s brains. And CNN seemed very much upset with Scott being fine with this. Here’s a little bit of that back and forth.
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Well, I tell you what is very serious, and that is pushing back on the encroachment of Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere. Yes, I do. I think Donald Trump is trying to send a message to the Chinese, and he’s also trying to send a message to everyone else in the hemisphere that I’m not going to put up with this encroachment. Now, what is true is that China is having encroachment in this hemisphere, in Africa, all over the world. They are trying to act like… the world’s leading superpower. They are trying to exert their values and their way of life all over the world. That used to be our job. And I think what Donald Trump is saying here is, I don’t want this in my backyard. America is the world’s superpower. More America is better. And I’m sending a message that I’m not going to put up with this sort of creeping Chinese influence.
SPEAKER 15 :
And by the way, sometimes the, you know, steps to do that involve telling the people who are cooperating with China that it will harm you if you keep cooperating with China in some way that feels like what’s happening with the Panama Canal. If Panama keeps doing things that seem to benefit people that are not us, we might take our gift back of the Panama Canal that we gave you a while ago or at least threaten to do it so fees get lowered and so relationships change. That essentially is a good move. I love how CNN, though, seemed to really hate, as I said a second ago, this kind of answer because they push back even harder being like, well, what about Panama? That relationship is tremendously important, right? It’s in my own backyard.
SPEAKER 02 :
But give me help me with this thinking, though, really quick. And Karen, I’ll bring you in a second. But if it if it if it angers Panama, if it hurts relations with Panama, the calculation is it won’t and it doesn’t matter.
SPEAKER 14 :
Do I care if Panama is angry? What, is Van Halen going to come and be upset about it?
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay, I’ve got to stop that. Panama, not exactly a country we need to fear, but definitely a great reference to Van Halen. I love this. There you go. Van Halen pops up to have a say in the Panama discussion. I’m all for it. By the way, that song’s about a car, not about the country or the Panama Canal. But nonetheless, just a great, honestly, a drop I should have just set up for shows that I do in general. Really good stuff. But anyway, yes, to Scott Jennings point, we don’t really care what Panama thinks of us and if they get all mad at us because we’re powerful enough to not care about that. And they’ll probably do what we want if we just exert a little bit of authority or even the threat of authority, which is something that is tremendously scary on the left. I love that about a lot of these discussions. You don’t empower allies by treating them like they’re more intimidating than us. And that’s something that we do a lot when the certain side of the aisle is in charge and running things in our country. We act as though we’re equivalent to all of our allies when we’re simply not. And it doesn’t make them appreciate the relationship they have with us as much as it should. It doesn’t make them fearful of us deciding that, wait a minute, there are certain lines you can’t cross. Ukraine is a great example right now. Ukraine is a country that was attacked, that was invaded, that had every right to defend itself. And we had a lot of reasons to want to help prevent Russia from taking more territory in that area and even fight a quote unquote proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. There was a lot of value in doing that. writing blank checks to that country, telling them they can wage that fight whatever way they want to whatever degree they want. And that if a solution could be found that involves giving up contested territory that we never would have helped them defend a territory that they’ve been fighting to defend for years after the annexing of Crimea. But we’re allowing them now to try to fight and even say out loud that they’re going to try to take Crimea back. with our weapons and our money and acting as though they’re allowed to make those decisions and we’ll just keep signing the checks. That’s terrible. That doesn’t allow us to be equivalent partners or any version of actual partners the way the power dynamic exists. Instead, it allows them to call the shots. And that has gone poorly for Ukraine. It’s gone poorly for the world. And I think that if there is inevitably a peace agreement, and even Zelensky has said this recently, it will involve surrendering some of that contested area in the Donbass region or wherever to Russia. Something that could have happened, say, a year ago and didn’t because of who was in charge and how we were writing those checks then. And the things that we were allowing Ukraine to say with our might and our money being the thing they’d wield to back up those words. That does matter no matter what you think. And I’m not pro Russia taking any of Ukraine. It’s just a byproduct of a way to get a peace agreement that is going to exist forever because Ukraine can’t fight endless war with Russia and win. They just can’t do that. But anyway, as you talk about these topics, as you see these things play out, you just wish that we had more powerful people in positions that matter, stronger-willed individuals. And this is one of those examples of someone who’s at least exerting the potential to be strong-willed if someone doesn’t listen and play ball the minute we start throwing out the threat.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thanks for tuning in to today’s edition of Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven’t already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
